


Chatouilleux

by Omnibee13



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, If you squint Hurt/Comfort I guess, Non-Consensual Tickling, Other, Post DMC5, Tickling, Vergil has a bad time and gets embarassed because he's a damnable baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27773905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnibee13/pseuds/Omnibee13
Summary: Sometime after returning from the Underworld, Dante and Vergil embark on what should be an easy, local job to take out a creature scaring the residents of the city. Nero tags along, but when the trio split up, the situation becomes complicated.Or: Vergil makes a bad decision because he's a diva and ends up in a .. ticklish situation.
Relationships: Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55
Collections: Spardacest Server Fics and Art





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Did I just spend several days waiting for my Invite to AO3 writing a 5K word fic, because there was zero ( 0 ) works featuring adult Vergil being tickled?  
> ...  
> Mayhaps.

“So what exactly is this thing?” Nero asked, trudging along behind Dante, but slightly abreast of Vergil. It was strange being so near to him, yet still so far away; the brothers hadn’t been back from the underworld for very long, but in that time, Nero had found himself their near constant companion. For him and Dante, it was like putting on a well-worn shirt, familiar and comfortable, and missed. With Vergil, his father, though? His real, living, breathing, scowling father? The man had said perhaps ten words to him and he hadn’t smiled once. In comparison, Dante had regaled him with stories of battles and treks across the Underworld, laughing as he talked about cutting down the remnants of the tree, banishing demons left, right, and center. 

“I got my ideas, kid, but no way to know for sure until I lay eyes on it,” Dante said, cutting across his thoughts. “Locals report some gross-lookin freak with way too many legs, so I figured, it’d either a job for us, or someone’s bat-shit insane.”

“Has it attacked anyone?”

“Nope,” the older hunter said, as they picked their way deeper into the light woods just outside the city. “Sightings only.”

Vergil made a noise that Nero might have called a “tch” and he glanced over at him. Things had been icy between them, since he returned, but comfortable, by and large. Dante had done his best to both cover for his brother but also make no excuses. He was usually the first to call Vergil a royal pain in the ass, a stuck up bitch, or a pampered princess, or all three, depending on what the situation called for. 

“Something to add?” Nero asked, one eyebrow raised at the older man. Vergil’s nose wrinkled, slightly. While, according to Dante, his time as V softened some of his more razor-like edges, Vergil was still all bones and bristles.

“Only that we may be chasing some human’s boogie man, or nothing at all, based on my brother’s need to be humanity’s wet-nurse,” he said, smoothly enough. Nero wondered, bitterly, if he rehearsed his lines, he delivered them with such efficiency and brutality. Vergil’s tongue was an ice-whip, and he wielded it with next to no deference as to who it hurt or when. 

“I thought the same thing about some story about a spoiled brat who wanted to plant an evil tree, but aren’t we all glad I didn’t go with my gut on that?” Dante called, having advanced further than the two. 

Can’t argue with that, can you, asshole? Nero thought, watching Vergil’s scowl deepen. Dante kept his older brother on a short leash, or at least as much of a leash as Vergil would deign himself to wear. As much as Vergil would say he needed no one, he didn’t care, and he acted as if all that were true, he still hadn’t cut a hole in time and space with Yamato and disappeared into nothingness. Still, that fact did little to curb Vergil’s acerbic nature.

Their demon-stalking took them deep into scrubland just outside of Fortuna. It was like an in-between, where the paved roads of the city met the wilderness. There were patches of grass, but mostly grey-brown dirt and stones. The further they went, away from the city and nearer to the wilderness, the more uneven the terrain And the more uneven the terrain, the more Nero thought he heard his biological father grumbling. 

“Perhaps,” the Alpha and Omega said, clearing his throat just after they had to navigate their way down a steep-embankment. “We could hasten this excursion by splitting up? Covering more ground and finding the beast before we have to spend too much longer in this wretched country – ”

“Fan out the search in three directions instead of one?” Dante asked, pausing to regard his brother. “Doesn’t sound too crazy when you put it that way, but there is an even simpler way to make this hunt go faster.” 

Vergil raised an eyebrow.

“How so?”

“When I asked “do you want to come on the hunt with us,” you could have just said “no.””

Vergil scowled and Nero sensed another ball-breaker of an argument coming on between the twins. Dante had slid that jab in, but then busied himself with checking tracks in the dirt and bent stems of tall grass. The elder, however, decided to rise to the bait, as he was wont to do.

“The alternative was that I stayed behind in that rat’s nest of a building,” he snarled. 

“My apologies it’s not a palace fit for the King of Hell, but, you see, I got to take on jobs to make money to pay for that shit-hole,” Dante said, airily. He stood, dusted the dirt from the knees of his pants and regarded his older brother. “But .. I guess it would make more sense if we got this thing over with sooner rather than later. So, fine, let’s split into three – ”

“I’m going with you,” Nero said, with a shrug. Vergil frowned, and looked at him, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“So .. Two groups?” He confirmed. “You and Dante and – ”

“Just you,” Nero replied, with a shrug. “Probably what you wanted anyway.” He did his best to ignore Dante’s slight disapproving look that bored into the back of his neck. Nero had been doing this since the twins returned. Vergil had been a disappointment to him, and even though he had kept V’s book of William Blake poetry, it remained just that: V’s Book. Not Vergil’s. Not something that he had kept since the destruction of his family home in Redgrave and the murder of his mother, Eva, but V’s. 

If his biological son’s pointed indifference had any effect on him, Vergil didn’t show it in so many words. 

“Fine,” Vergil said, more of a spat, and turned to walk away from the pair.

“Verg,” Dante attempted, but Vergil lifted a hand as he walked. 

“This will be over shortly,” he assured the younger twin. “The sooner we kill it or seal it or turn it into a pet for you to coo over, the sooner we can go back home.” 

“To the rat’s nest,” Nero muttered. He was sure Vergil heard him, but he didn’t rise to the bait, this time. 

“You know what we’re looking for?” Dante asked, resigned to the situation. He never thought he’d be the mature one in any given turn of events, but apparently they brought a little bit of Hell back with them when they crossed back into the human realm. 

“I’m quite sure,” Vergil called, putting distance between them. 

Dante looked at Nero, hands on his hips.

“ . . . You’re gonna have to talk to him eventually.”

Nero whistled, turning on his heel and headed back into the scrubland, in the direction they were originally headed, his hands behind his head. 

“Nnnope~” 

Dante signed but followed, coming level with the younger man. 

“I’m still not solid on what we’re supposed to be looking for?” Nero asked, after a stretch of silence that made him uncomfortable, despite his dedication to being calm and mature in the face of his former mentor turned uncle. Dante kept a brisk pace, but he did pause to glance at him.

“I have a basic idea, from what I’ve seen,” he began. “Lots of concepts in the human world can run parallel with things in the demon world. You could almost draw a line, actually. My theory is that it came from when the barrier between the two worlds was way thinner than it is now, and there was a lot of intermingling.”

“You put a lot of thought into this.”

“Nah, I just listened to Vergil on days where he wasn’t being a contrarian dipshit and he’d devour the books in our old man’s study,” the legendary demon hunter said, with a shrug. “Anyway, this thing is by and large harmless, if I’m right about what it is.”

“So what is it?”

“Common gargalarion,” Dante said, easily, as if Nero knew what the fuck it was that he just said.

“And just what the hell is a common gargle.. garga… That thing?”

Dante paused, one hand up, one finger pointed, clearly amused, but in a way that made Nero nervous. 

“Thaaat’s the rub, isn’t it?” He said, facing Nero square. Nero really didn’t like how pleased with himself he looked. “It’s a demon, naturally. But uh .. How do I explain it?” He hemhawed for a moment, with Nero crossing his arms over his chest in impatience. “You didn’t grow up with sibling-siblings, right?” Nero’s nose wrinkled in distaste. He hated talking about this crap.

“Other kids in the orphanage, then Credo and Kyrie, why?” He asked, apprehensive and annoyed. 

“Older brothers can be evil,” Dante continued, waving his hand as if trying to shoo away Nero’s pissy attitude. “Especially when they have an old man who dotes on him, so he takes what Papa Sparda does to him and then immediately inflicts it on me – ”

“Dante, what the fuck does this have to do with the demon?” Nero demanded, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Fine, fine,” he said, putting his hands up. “Just gonna be out with it. You ever have someone try to play “Tickle Monster” with you when you were a tadpole?” 

Nero snorted, dirision in his very core. When Dante’s expression didn’t change from frank honesty, Nero’s own started to falter. 

“.. You’re fucking kidding?”

“Serious as a heart-attack, Junior. It feeds off of energy, in that way. Like tapping a tree-trunk for syrup. Any-hoodles, it’s harmless, so long as you don’t let it get a firm grip on you to start with, give it a few good bonks on the head, it goes scurrying back into the demon-world, badabing, badaboom, we go back, collect our fee, and assure the good people of this hamlet that we banished the totally bloodthirsty demon that’s been scaring them from the sidelines.”

Nero shook his head, exhaling hard. 

“You’re telling me,” he began, slowly. “That I turned own dinner with Kyrie so we could hunt some demon that tickles people to death?”

“Well, not to death,” Dante said, batting his eyes innocently. “Just usually til they pass out and they can’t produce any more food for it.”

“This is fuckin dumb, Dante,” Nero grumbled, deciding to forge ahead. Dante grinned after him, starting to follow. 

“Where’s the fire?” 

“The sooner we can finish this pants-on-head stupid hunt, the better,” Nero grumbled. The fact he sounded like his father in that moment pissed him off, and if Dante mentioned it..

As they started making their way down another minor embankment, however, something that may have been a sharp yelp rang out, cutting across the mundane natural ambiance. Both demon hunters looked in the direction of the noise and then over at each other, an uneasy glance passed between the pair of them. Dante was the first to break the silence with a “haaaaaaa” before they took off, running, towards the sound.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The demon found Vergil and BOY is he upset about it..

The toe of Vergil’s boot kicked at a stray pebble in his way. Juvenile? Perhaps. But Vergil preferred to call his darker moods “brooding” or “contemplative,” whereas Dante once accused him from “pouting.” In this case, he was dour over the fact that his suggestion to split up, save time, back-fired in such a spectacular way. While he had volunteered the – frankly brilliant – idea of splitting off to cover more ground, he hadn’t expected that Nero would have decided that “splitting up” was “Vergil goes one way, by himself, and Dante and Nero go off as a pair.” 

It really was the shocking quickness that Nero replied with that niggled at him the most. He didn’t even ponder it. 

Vergil kicked at the pebble again, sending it further down the foot-path he had found himself on. 

Now, here he was, likely not on the path of the demon Dante was tracking. He felt uniquely disregarded, put aside. That feeling bothered him. He had felt it before. Though Dante vehemently denied that Eva prioritized him and disregarded Vergil during the attack that ended with her death, the concept still bothered him. It had been a defining feeling, a catalyst that he used to build his entire adulthood on, so learning that it was a mere misconception and not the tinder to the inferno that would be his motivation made him feel hollow. 

Vergil’s eyes had still been on his feet as he walked, waiting to again come upon the pebble he had been kicking, his mind preoccupied and his focus elsewhere than the scrubland around him, when something whapped him, hard, across the shoulders. The action caused him to stagger forward, no focus to be had, and sprawled out in an ungraceful fall into the dirt. 

Simultaneously glad that no one was around to watch such an embarrassing moment, and utterly incensed anything would dare do such an indignity to the current, reigning King of Hell, Vergil grit his teeth as he brought himself to his elbows. A snarl was ready to leave his lips, but it died in his throat when he happened to turn back to see what dared strike him. 

He paled, considerably. 

He had few memories of his father, Sparda. The most concrete of his memories came from perhaps three or four. Seeing as Sparda left them sometime just before their eighth birthday, and then their mother was murdered half a year later, that didn’t give him a lot of time to create memories with the man. He remembered that Sparda was a giant compared to them, and Dante would climb and clamor over him like a strong oak. He remembered Sparda’s decadent study, wall to wall book shelves of demon lore and artifacts. He remembered asking his father to read one, perhaps around five or six, and Sparda, perhaps believing that the nearest thing to a picture book was a Demonic Bestiary, obliged him. 

So he knew the creature that had struck out at him upon sight. The Common Gargalarion was basically a demon fucking marshmallow, it was so pathetic looking. It’s primary body appeared to have the proportions of a small human child, but it was pale white with grey, downy fur, overlarge blank black eyes, and no mouth to speak of, just a kind of proboscis that curled like a moth’s. It moved bipedal, usually, though it had six limbs total, its two sets of arms by and large useless, thin appendages that ended in three fingered hands. It didn’t need strong limbs, because Common Gargalarion’s had as many as two dozen deceptively strong, wispy looking tentacles that came from their backs..

And two of them were wrapped around either of Vergil’s ankles. 

Before he could react, his precious concentration totally shattered and scattered to the winds, Vergil found himself roughing drug across the dirt, one hand uselessly scrabbling for Yamato, who lay beautifully and innocently just out of reach. 

Gargalarion feeding tentacles were horrifically strong, and as many as half could be tipped with ten prehensile moving nubs. 

Vergil grit his teeth as two tentacles secured his wrists, as was the feeding custom of the Gargalarion, kicking out as much as he could before the inevitable happened. It wasn’t the act that was sending his senses into fight or flight, but the sheer humiliation. Gargalarion’s didn’t give up their meals until they were spent, generally just abandoning them after they passed out, but Vergil was part demon, and part of a very strong demon lineage at that. Stamina was kind of his thing. So either this would last a while, or, worse, he’d have to face Dante if he was discovered before then. He wasn’t sure what he actually wanted. There was no trying to reason with a Gargalarion, and even if he had any concentration to spare to Trigger, he was ashamed to admit a little bit of V was saying, in his head, that’d it’d be poor sport. The creature was harmless, just annoying –

He was too old to laugh at this, he tried to reason with himself, even as something that might have – but certainly wasn’t – a fucking giggle rose in his throat, in that nervous way that happened just before tickles came, watching them start to inch towards his abdomen. Why he was having vague flash backs to one of the few warm memories he had with his father, the man able to hold and pin both Vergil’s and Dante’s hands above their head, pinned to the ground, he had no idea. Dante would know what was coming and was already shrieking and laughing, flailing legs as best he could, while Vergil, next to him, was too stricken with dread, that Sparda’s wolfish grinning down on them felt more like facing something ready to devour him than his father. When their father’s free hand finally did come down, usually on ribs or belly, the shrieking was downright obscene in pitch and volume, Sparda tickling both twins until their laughs turned into hiccupping gasps. Then, because he was the fucking devil himself, he’d rip their shirts up, exposing skinny tummies, and blew raspberries on their skin which would end the game entirely. Dante would want the game to continue while Vergil was more embarrassed that Sparda would usually do him last, and he’d shake his head, eyes wide, begging for it not to happen with breathless “nononopapno—” before, of course, it happened.

Abject humiliation that just kicked off a trend for Vergil to suffer through in the future.. It was that bullshit anticipation that started off the first crack in Vergil’s icy veneer, and it didn’t help that the first place he got touched was in the hollows of his pelvis, where his thighs met his hips. The noise that came out through grit teeth was more anguished than he’d like, but as the tentacles drove into his hips like thumbs, a solid back and forth pressure, he flexed and unflexed his hands, face screwed up in an attempt at grabbing concentration by the balls..

“Nn.. nngghhaa,” he gasped, as the Gargalarion tilted its head to one side and the other. The proboscis furled and unfurled, tasting the air as its chosen meal struggled not to let the flood gates open. He would not break, he would not break, he would not break, he would n—

The Gargalarion found the bottom-most ridge of his ribcage, and he cracked. It was more of a sharp yelp than a laugh, truth be told, but it devolved there soon enough, Vergil shaking his head, teeth still grit as he tried to quell it. It didn’t work well.

If he kept his eyes closed, he could just will the time to go faster, or so he hoped. He didn’t have to see the Gargalarion looking weirdly pleased with itself as he – shamefully – started cracking up laughing. Because, if he closed his eyes, he could maybe block out that this was happening and his body was betraying him and, yes, he was laughing because the stupid, asinine, evil fucking tickle monster, of all juvenile things, got the damnable jump on him. Vergil felt like his cheeks were on fire, and the tickling sensation was dancing up and down between his ribcage and pelvis, causing him to cackle and wiggle in vain. And it was moving up his si—

And it was moving up his what?!

Vergil almost caught himself crying out “no,” in between breathless laughter, as the Gargalarion’s feeder tentacles that had been rubbing hell out of the lower-most edge of his ribcage started up into the groves of his ribs proper. He managed to kick out, slightly, but it didn’t release him. Going nearly limp in the creature’s hold, his lungs burned as he laughed, hard, in response to the tickling to his upper body. If it hit the hollows of his armpits, he’d be done for. He was glad for his grieves and boots, because if he was barefoot, he’d probably be dead from asphyxiation. 

Dante was a battle axe, whereas he was a scalpel. Precision and focus was his game; being tickled to the point of hysterics meant he couldn’t probably give his proper name if asked, in that moment, let alone focus enough to call Yamato to his hand, because if he could, ohhh, would he ever slice the Gargalarion into filthy ribbons. 

He wasn’t entirely sure how long he had lasted like that, but he was getting the hiccups. The two that had been torturing his pelvis switched to his hips, and he shrieked, arching up. But there was no getting away from the sensations, and too much movement, Vergil realized all too late, made his shirt ride up and expose just the most lower-part of his stomach. Bare skin tickling would probably kill him, so Vergil grit his teeth, choking on laughter, and waited for death to come, because the Gargalarion made a chirping noise that he sensed was very predatory, and it was just a matter of time until – 

“What the fuck did you get yourself into?!”

Nope, nope, now he wanted death, Vergil decided, his face flush just along his cheeks, knowing that voice anywhere. Just let me die, I’m ready to die now. Most cogent thought was evading him anyway, as a tentacle started to circle his twitching, hyper-sensitive navel..

Nero let Dante handle it. He was too busy cracking up at the sight. Leaning on Red Queen, doubled over-laughing, Nero thought he’d pull a stitch in his side if Dante didn’t get his older brother sorted sooner rather than later. Dante, to his credit, set about doing just that, using King Cerberus, in its staff form, to whack the Gargalarion over the head. The fact that a creature so downright cute got the jump on big, bad, bitchy Vergil just made the situation all the more funny to Nero, while the little demon put all four arms over its head, turning to Dante and seeming to swear and cuss up a storm in its little, chirpy tickle demon language.

It let go of Vergil, who curled into a ball, gasping for breath in between hiccups, and sincerely wishing the earth would swallow him whole.

Dante frowned down at the demon, staff up against his shoulder, his other hand on his hip, looking like a disapproving mother.

“Get back through the hellmouth, you little scamp,” he demanded, going to whack the Gargalarion again. “Don’t you come sniffing around these parts again, either, you had a snack, now get steppin’!” 

The demon scurried off, still chirping and swearing, until it disappeared into the brush. Nero, no longer able to remain upright, fell onto his butt into the dirt, one arm around his stomach as he howled.

“Holy shit!” He cackled. “It got Vergil!”

“Shut up,” Vergil croaked, weakly. Dante stored King Cerberus again and made his way over to the heap that had once been his Ice Princess older brother and crouched, only smirking a little bit. 

“Split up, he says,” Dante sing-songed. “It’ll be over quicker, he says~”

“I’ll murder you..”

“Will you?” Dante asked, using his right hand to pinch at Vergil’s side. The older Cambion’s eyes snapped wide and he made a choked noise in his throat, quickly uncurling from his ball position to scramble away from Dante. Though Nero was taking certain sadistic glee at seeing him in such a state, Dante’s grin was less predatory and more frank. “The over-sensitiveness will wear off in a few hours. Sooner if we can get you home and into the bathtub.”

Vergil glared at him, his hair disheveled. He struggled to compose himself, sweeping his hair back, but when Dante rose from his crouched position and offered him a hand, Vergil’s pride was too bruised not to take it and be helped to his feet. He was sore. Like he had fought a few rounds..

Nero finally seemed to get over his own amusement at the sight, wiping a tear from his eye as he caught his breath.

“Oh, man,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Holy shit. What happened?”

“I got ambushed,” Vergil growled, though it didn’t really hold much malice, considering he had just been tickled into submission by the gummy worm of the demon world. Dante, though, did seem to give Nero a look that cowed the boy. Vergil made a mental note to ask him about it later, but for now, he just strode over to where Yamato lay. He unsheathed her, mentally apologizing for leaving her all alone in the cold dirt, and used her to slash a portal to Devil May Cry, the shop. No, there was no way he was going to trek his way back to Fortuna City, and then endure the awkward ferry and trolley ride back to Red Grave. He just wanted to be home, he just wanted to be in a hot bathtub, he just wanted to forget the humiliation of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Vergil.. Being an Ice Princess is hard as fuck. He's got a rep to protecc...


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy after care within, if you squint..  
> Dante is a good little brother, especially when he has to pretend to be the big brother.

Dante wrapped a pair of knuckles on the wooden door of the bathroom. Nero had long since been sent home, the younger man still – pun intended – tickled pink about Vergil’s embarrassing situation. Vergil had retreated upstairs without bidding farewell to him, which Dante hoped his Mom Look tm at the younger man relayed how disappointed he was in Nero’s poking fun at Vergil. It probably didn’t, but he’d tell Vergil that Nero felt real bad about it and maybe rub some salve on his big brother’s thoroughly bruised ego. 

Nope, the shop was empty, and quiet, save for the sound of the tub’s running water. 

Dante was carrying a two towels, folded the way that Vergil would – because he had folded them – and two clean washcloths. 

“Come in,” came the melancholy voice from within and Dante twisted the knob, finding the scene within. Vergil, in the tub, legs folded up near his chest, his arms wresting on his knees, and his lips pressed to his arms. Vergil had a habit of, when he was alone with Dante, making himself seem small. He had started since Hell, and the trend continued. When anyone else was around, Vergil was cock of the walk, but with just Dante..? Not so much. Steam rose from the bathwater, and Vergil’s clothes lay in a haphazard pile in a laundry basket atop the closed toilet lid. Dante showed him the towels and Vergil shut his eyes, his way of acknowledging him. 

Dante invited himself in, kneeling by the tub, one of the clean washcloths in his hand. Vergil let him. He kept his eyes closed, while Dante dunked his hand in the bathwater. Nearly scalding, but for Cambions, it was pleasant as fuck. The washcloth soaked, Dante squeezed it with one hand, and pressed it to Vergil’s bare and exposed back and shoulder, tenderly. 

“It’s a biological impossibility to be able to tickle one’s self, correct?” Vergil asked, making conversation. Dante kept doing Vergil’s back. His clothes would need to be thoroughly washed, and his skin may still have traces of the weird little dander particles that that Gargalarion shed to “season” its meal, making them more ticklish than usual, for longer. 

Dante hummed. 

“I think so,” he said, conversational. Vergil sighed, straightening his legs out, groaning as the hot water covered them. 

“Tell that to my feet,” he mumbled. “I nearly leapt out of my skin.”

“It’s the dander,” Dante said, soothing enough. “Had one get me once. Nearly peed.”

“Your vulgarity is only slightly appreciated.”

“A good scrub is what you needed though,” Dante countered, sagely. “Nothing like a long, hot bath and a long, warm nap.” Vergil snorted, Dante was sure of it, but he’d never admit it.

“You sound like Mother.”

“Between you and the squirt, I FEEL like mom,” Dante said, cupping his hands and pouring the water over Vergil’s head. His shoulders hunched; he hadn’t expected it. 

“I think I can manage that,” the elder muttered.

“You might be exhausted,” Dante countered.

“I’m not.” He was. Dante dried his hands, leaving the washcloth he had been using, soaked, and hanging on the back of Vergil’s neck. 

“If you’re good, I’ll get you a change of clothes,” he said, grunting as he stood. “Then, bedtime.” Vergil gave him an exceedingly dry look, leaning back so his head and knees were all that stayed above the surface of the steaming water. 

“I don’t need to be mothered,” he grumbled. Dante clicked his tongue, turning to leave. 

“Your mouth’s tellin me nooo,” he half-sang, as he went to leave. Vergil shut his eyes and submerged his whole head under water so he couldn’t hear the rest of Dante’s asinine song play out. Bubbles gurgled at the surface for a moment and Vergil, holding his breath, gave thought to staying there for a while..

Though his knees and thighs were getting cold.

.. Dante had never, to his knowledge, played hockey before, but Vergil found himself wearing a pair of red and black plaid lounge pants and one of Dante’s hockey jerseys once he had extracted and dried himself from the tub. He still felt a little “tickly” as Dante put it, embarrassingly, but he’d lie and say otherwise. Either way, Vergil stalked downstairs, a quilt wrapped around his shoulders, to the careworn, threadbare couch parked in front of the out-dated TV, where Dante was lounging, both arms around the back of the couch, one leg crossed over his knee. If he acknowledged Vergil, the later ignored it, and just slumped, tucking his legs under himself, and leaning against the opposite armrest, curled up. 

“Not a word of this to those women,” he grumbled, and Dante merely hummed his agreement. 

If Vergil fell asleep in front of the television that evening, he was unaware, because he woke up in his own bed, alone, in the wee hours of the morning..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all she wrote, folks. And it's absolutely horrid.

**Author's Note:**

> Lord have mercy, I am rust as hell at fic writing..


End file.
